Friday morning I took a taxi at 7:30am to catch a service bus to the bus terminal. I was traveling to Ayvalik, a seaside town on the northwestern Aegean Sea. Buses in Turkey are much better than Greyhound. There is a "host" that brings snacks and drinks thru - even better service than some airlines these days. You can get tea, coffee, soda, juice or water. They hand out cookies, cake, pretzels etc for snacks. If you need something before it is time for the next round, flag the host down and he will get you what you want. We drove for a long time to where we took a ferry across the Marmara Sea. We waited almost 2 hrs before we got on a ferry. Once on the ferry you could get off the bus and go up to get food, sit in or out while we went across. I sat outside on the front. The breeze felt nice. Once back on land we continued on our way. We stopped at a rest stop for 30 minutes. I had some delicious ayran ( thirst quenching yogurt drink) and some toast (think of grilled cheese but made in a panini maker with Turkish cheese and sucuk - pepperoni like sausage), yummy

! Caner and his family were staying with his dad. I hadn't seen Mehmet Amca (Caner's dad in 13 years). Mehmet Amca actually lived in a small place near Ayvalik called Altinova(Golden Plains). Apparently the land is very fertile and they are able to grow anything there. Tons of fields from onions, apricots, olive trees, lettuce and citrus groves. After a very long day of travel, Caner met me at 8pm just in time for dinner. We had delicious salads, eggplant dish in olive oil, and fish (yes, I had some and it wasn't bad- not that I would choose it on a menu), dessert was fresh fruit. Saturday we walked to the beach after breakfast- not even 5 minutes away - and went swimming. We came back for a late lunch of wonderful olive oil dishes: beans, eggplant. Late in the afternoon we drove over to Sarimsakli to a place called Devil's Banquet. It was high up on a hill with a magnificent view of the area. We had something to drink and waited for the sunset. It was beautiful. Later we drove over to Ali Bey Adasi or Cunda Island. It was extremely crowded so we didn't explore much but we did sample some delicious ice cream before heading home.Today, Sunday, we spent most of the day at the beach swimming and sunning and had another delicious meal- Özlem does well with cooking. She also knows I love eggplant so we've had a lot. Tomorrow I will head further south on a bus to Bodrum. Hope you are all well. Until next time....All my best,Kim